Pay Per Click Advertising(PPC) quickly established itself as a fundamental part of any high level internet marketing strategy.
In basic terms PPC is a prioritised search engine listing whereby the site owner pays the search engine provider to have its site prioritised. This is a fixed amount for each person clicking on the sites' link.
The amount paid per click differs from engine to engine. Some charge a fixed fee dependent on the type of business and then show all the relevant paid listings in random. Others rank their listings on a bid basis whereby each customer states the maximum they wish to pay per click with the highest bidder appearing at the top.
Paid positioning is now the only way to guarantee top-of-the-page listings for the more popular search terms on most major search engines and needs to be reviewed regularly to maintain a high ranking.
As the top ranked listings attract by far the greatest proportion of search engine traffic, it is clear that Pay for Position, or PPC advertising is an important tool when seeking to proactively reach people who are interested in what your website has to offer or for brand building in a particular sector.
This approach has the added advantage of being paid on a performance-related basis, so you only pay for the traffic you receive. Unlike many kinds of media, it is not only enormously targeted, but also completely accountable. Therefore it is possible to deliver a predictable volume of closely targeted traffic for a cost effective price per visitor calculated to give an excellent return on investment.
